It's been a ride!
On to new pastures
“Who has not felt the urge to throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence?”
John Muir
Legendary Scottish naturalist and godfather of America’s beautiful national parks
Hello,
As many of you will know, I’m Sam. I’m the founder of Beijing to Britain, and I have spent the last three and a half years producing these research reports by myself, week in and week out, working six and a half days a week. And that’s coming to an end.
I’ve tried several ways to raise money to grow - not just sustain - this business. That’s been unsuccessful. And that’s life. A good lump of this comes from being a first-time entrepreneur making typical business mistakes (who would have guessed it’s hard to make money around the media industry?!?), and part of it reflects a wider, critical issue in this space: a lack of sustained funding for the UK’s China capabilities. I’ll come on to that. But I should add that a significant part comes from wanting to do something new.
In the short term, you will continue to receive Beijing to Britain briefings for another two months, plus the podcast, and we’re planning on hosting some public events with some of my favourite thinkers I’ve been blessed to talk to over the last three years.
After three and a half years, I have achieved things I never imagined possible when I began. I’ve travelled to Europe and Asia, met hundreds of fascinating people, and had thousands of fascinating conversations. We’ve launched a podcast, appeared on panels with a Foreign Secretary and various MPs, and had our analysis and ideas quoted in papers and organisations read by hundreds of millions of people. I like to think Beijing to Britain has also done a fair bit to get across our one core belief that the UK can and should be doing more to invest in its China capabilities, and proactively think about foreign policy more generally.
The community that has grown around this briefing has kept me on my toes, kept me working hard, and kept me feeling alive. I cannot express in complete terms how grateful I am for that, and to the companies that put money into this venture. I’m grateful to Steve Lynch, who put substantial amounts of time and effort into launching our podcast and hosting events, and most importantly my parents and partner, whose wisdom and patience this project owes everything to.
What comes next is yet to be decided. I’m keen to work on the edges of politics and diplomacy, trying to think about where the UK can and should be in the world, perhaps while living in a new country for a while to gain some perspective. I’m not sure what that role looks like yet, and if it sounds like something you have a view on, I’m always interested in talking.
I want to briefly discuss three observations after spending my mid-twenties observing this space, both inside and outside Parliament. They are informed in part by mistakes I’ve made myself.
Too often, some British policymakers, activists and journalists have confused views with values. The former can and should change under interrogation or in light of new information, while the latter should be held with conviction and integrity. There is a comfort in retreating to set views and only talking with those who share them with you, but at this moment, doing so is already creating massive gaps in our ability to understand the world across the water. The views that much of the political establishment here is retreating into are not held by the majority of the world or even some of our close partners.
If left unchecked, the result won’t be as disastrous as the papers or cynics are hoping for: it will be much quieter. Countries will stop caring about what the United Kingdom has to say for itself, in part because the means of debating ideas has become stunted in this space. Britain will be confined to being the country that others always politely listen to, but then move immediately on from. Being confident in your values means you can project yourself into the world, with a curiosity underpinning your views. Successful foreign policy comes from a position of domestic strength: strength in values, strength in the economy, and strength in intelligence.
The genesis of confidence is doing small things right. The United Kingdom needs to rapidly create the capability to understand China that goes beyond the pockets that exist within the civil service and some private sector companies. These roles need to harness diverse expertise: China and climate change, China and AI, China in multinational institutions, China and space etc. This will not cost a significant amount of money, but it does require a champion or champions to push it through Parliament, Government and Whitehall. I have written extensively on this issue and have nothing more to add that isn’t already in the public domain. However, it has been a constant frustration to see that even the most vocal China-sceptic politicians have failed to push the Government on what investments it has made to this end - perhaps because it’s boring and doesn’t get the headlines or quotes they desire - and that so few of them have sent their staff on courses offered by existing institutions. Invest and re-invest in your people. Whitehall is too opaque about what it is doing to build this capability, and needs to be more transparent about how it plans to retain expertise.
But it should not be left solely to the politicians to advocate for this. Too few think tanks and people of note in this space who have benefited from the systems in place before them have made contributions as to how we could achieve this rapid capability building. Why is it that most of the cutting-edge research is being done across the ocean in America, or by MERICS in Europe?
I think the private sector has a role to play too. Many are already involved in sponsoring or funding small programmes or ideas across the UK, and have been for some years. But with the arrival of a new Government looking likely, I would suggest that now is as good a time as any for these companies to work more collaboratively together and focus on one or two major projects.
Here’s one top-line example. Bring together a China Expertise Taskforce. Put some capital into a fund, co-run by the Cabinet Office or the Great Britain China Centre, with two initial goals. First: upskill civil servants or Parliamentary staffers at your companies or agencies, breaking down the barriers between being a ‘China expert’ and an expert in anything else. Clearly, they are not mutually exclusive ideas. Investing in upskilling backbench politicians and their staff benefits the entire space. Second: create more Chinese classes at schools - language and culture - with one aim being to eventually replace Confucius Institutes at universities. Incentivise takeup by offering internships at your companies for British Mandarin or Cantonese speakers. Encourage the Government to create similar internships or apprenticeships in their departments, and the intelligence community to do similar.
Having a larger number of these sorts of people will benefit everyone - from hawks and doves to the centre ground, from business to politics. If done well, this system can be replicated at speed for other key bilateral partners and countries, from India to Indonesia, Mongolia to Nigeria.
Finally, this space has so many experts who for various reasons are unwilling - or not helped - to raise their heads above the parapets and correct prevailing media and political narratives. I don’t mean contrarians or people who are clearly travelling in the same direction as the Chinese Communist Party. I mean subject-area experts, who read the newspapers’ coverage of China-related issues or listen to Parliamentary debates and end up shaking their heads. It’s a massive shame because many of them are brilliant. I would strongly encourage these people to speak up when they can add proper insight to a story. Otherwise, the vacuum will continue to be dominated by people who can fire off a snappy, catchy, but non-expert quote - none quite as bad as myself.
I have spent my life on the periphery of societies, cultures and groups. I don’t live in the same country I was born in and don’t sound like I’m from where I am. When I was young, it used to be something that made me feel self-conscious. As I’ve got older, it has become an attribute - a built-in advantage when it comes to analysing spaces and ideas that are new to me. I’m grateful to the many good people who operate in this space and who have donated their time and thoughts to help me learn.
It’s time for me to throw that loaf of bread and pound of tea into an old sack, and jump into a new adventure. I’m looking forward to the next challenge, and thank you all for joining me on this one.
Sam
Best of luck, Sam! You’ve made a real impact. Thank you for your work.